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Ross Chastain and Ken Fukuda completed an excellent adventure in Saturday’s IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge race at Road America, where the story of how they came together and ran their Grand Sport (GS) class No. 16 Skip Barber Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT4 outweighed the result.
Chastain, the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series championship runner-up, made a cameo appearance in his IMSA debut after reuniting with Fukuda, his one-time Skip Barber instructor. This arose thanks to a two-week gap in this year’s NASCAR schedule opened by the Paris Olympics break.
What the weekend revealed was Chastain’s hunger to learn and improve as much on road courses as there was a desire to eat his traditional watermelon on National Watermelon Day, which took place on race day, August 3.
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In Fukuda, the 2024-25 IMSA Diverse Driver Development Scholarship recipient, he had a built-in coach and co-driver for his first weekend sharing a car in more than a decade.
“I did do a street stock race when I was about 14 years old back home,” Chastain recalled of the last time he shared a car.
He had one slight seat adjustment back then, though.
“I was sitting on pillows because another driver was a little bigger and I was a little late hitting my growth spurt.
“But this feels the most natural because Ken has instructed me before. The Skip Barber instructors have been great.”
